Viking 1

Also known as Viking-B

NASA mission which sent an orbiter and lander to Mars

Key facts

Mission type: Mars Orbiter/Lander
Operator: NASA
Cospar id: Orbiter: 1975-075A Lander: 1975-075C
Satcat number span no: Orbiter: 8108 Lander: 9024
Website: Viking Project Information
Mission duration: Orbiter: 1,846 days (1797 sols) , Lander: 2,306 days (2,245 sols), Launch to last contact: 2,642 days
Manufacturer: Orbiter: JPL , Lander: Martin Marietta
Launch mass: 3,530 kg
Dry mass: Orbiter: 883 kg (1,947 lb), Lander: 572 kg (1,261 lb)
Power: Orbiter: 620 W, Lander: 70 W
Launch date: 21:22, August 20, 1975 (UTC) ( 1975-08-20T21:22:00Z )
Rocket: Titan IIIE / Centaur
Launch site: LC-41 , Cape Canaveral
Contractor: Martin Marietta
Last contact: November 11, 1982 ( 1982-11-11 )
Reference system: Areocentric
Periareion altitude: 320 km (200 mi)
Apoareion altitude: 56,000 km (35,000 mi)

via Wikipedia infobox

~14 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Viking 1 was the first of two spacecraft, along with Viking 2, each consisting of an orbiter and a lander, sent to Mars as part of NASA's Viking program. The lander touched down on Mars on July 20, 1976, the first successful Mars lander in history. Viking 1 operated on Mars for 2,307 days (over 6 1⁄4 years) or 2245 Martian solar days, the longest extraterrestrial surface mission until the record was broken by the Opportunity rover on May 19, 2010.

Mission

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Viking 1” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.